CBRS Alliance and ATIS Enter Liaison Agreement to Advance Commercialization of the 3.5 GHz CBRS Band

Collaborative partnership will focus on network identity management initiatives and legal and regulatory compliance to support OnGo™ technology

SUNNYVALE, Calif. AND WASHINGTON, D.C. – Dec. 18, 2018 – Today, the CBRS Alliance and the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) signed an agreement to cooperate closely to advance use of the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum band. Under the new agreement, the organizations will work together to address technical challenges and business opportunities for OnGo technology.

Collaboration will focus on the technical interworking between the CBRS Alliance and ATIS solutions, including the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI), Home Network Identity (HNI), Priority Services, and Radio Access Networks. The work will also address legal and regulatory compliance topics.

“The CBRS Alliance values working with ATIS as one of the most respected industry associations in the telecommunications sector,” said Alan Ewing, Executive Director of the CBRS Alliance. “We’re looking forward to tackling technical challenges that may be associated with delivering commercial service in the 3.5 GHz band and to maximizing cooperation between our organizations.”

As part of the liaison agreement, the organizations will partner on HNI initiatives within the 3.5 GHz CBRS band. Traditionally, an HNI identifies a mobile subscriber’s home network and is assignable to mobile network operators with international roaming capabilities. Since the 3550-3700 MHz spectrum is not solely for exclusive use, some users will not directly attain FCC spectrum licenses. Instead, users acquire base stations certified by the FCC as being compliant with the FCC rules. With such broad and low-cost access to the shared licensed spectrum, ATIS’ IMSI Oversight Council (IOC) derived a strategy for allocating blocks of IMSIs for users within the 3.5 GHz CBRS band. Within the 3.5 GHz band, a Shared HNI is used to identify CBRS operations, thus conserving HNI resources.

“Earlier this year, ATIS and the CBRS Alliance achieved a key milestone in enabling use of CBRS spectrum to improve mobile connectivity and make it more widely available,” said Susan Miller, President and CEO of ATIS. “This new agreement affirms that we will continue our collaboration with the CBRS Alliance, which has been effective in creating infrastructure to utilize the 3.5 GHz CBRS band for LTE services, while also advancing IoT applications.”

On November 6, the CBRS Alliance Technical Working Group and ATIS hosted an educational webinar offering an overview of Shared HNI on CBRS and its benefits for the overall industry. The session included an explanation of HNIs, their purpose, the benefits of a Shared HNI compared to a non-shared HNI, and best practices to set up network identifiers in a Shared HNI environment. The full webinar can be found here: https://www.cbrsalliance.org/resource/cbrs-shared-hni-webinar/

About the CBRS AllianceThe CBRS Alliance believes that LTE-based solutions in the CBRS band, utilizing shared spectrum, can enable both in-building and outdoor coverage and capacity expansion at massive scale. In order to maximize CBRS’ full potential, the CBRS Alliance aims to enable a robust ecosystem towards making LTE-based CBRS solutions available. The mission of the CBRS Alliance is to evangelize LTE-based CBRS technology, use cases and business opportunities while simultaneously driving technology developments necessary to fulfill the mission, including multi-operator LTE capabilities. The Alliance will also establish an effective product certification program for LTE equipment in the US 3.5 GHz band ensuring multi-vendor interoperability. For more information, please visit http://www.cbrsalliance.org and follow the CBRS Alliance on LinkedIn and Twitter.

About ATISAs a leading technology and solutions development organization, the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) brings together the top global ICT companies to advance the industry’s business priorities. ATIS’ 150 member companies are currently working to address 5G, cyber security, robocall mitigation, IoT, artificial intelligence-enabled networks, the all-IP transition, network functions virtualization, smart cities, emergency services, network evolution, quality of service, billing support, operations, and much more. These priorities follow a fast-track development lifecycle – from design and innovation through standards, specifications, requirements, business use cases, software toolkits, open source solutions, and interoperability testing.

ATIS is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). ATIS is the North American Organizational Partner for the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a founding Partner of the oneM2M global initiative, a member of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), as well as a member of the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL). For more information, visit www.atis.org. Follow ATIS on Twitter and on LinkedIn.

About CBRS Alliance

The CBRS Alliance believes that LTE-based solutions in the 3.5 GHz band, utilizing shared spectrum, can enable both in-building and outdoor coverage and capacity expansion at massive scale. In order to maximize the full potential of spectrum sharing, the CBRS Alliance enables a robust ecosystem through the management of the OnGo brand, and the OnGo Certification Program.